


Almae Matres (or, Stages of Grieving, Give or Take)

by Ericine



Category: Scarecrow and Mrs. King
Genre: Character Study, Family, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Healing, Mother-Daughter Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-11
Updated: 2015-12-11
Packaged: 2018-05-06 03:39:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,808
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5401598
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ericine/pseuds/Ericine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dotty's been watching her daughter recover and grow for years. And maybe, while she's been doing that, her own life has transformed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Almae Matres (or, Stages of Grieving, Give or Take)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Dizzy28](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dizzy28/gifts).



> Dedicated to Dizzy, who loves to give me crazy plot ideas at inhuman hours.
> 
> Trigger warning for a short instance of child abuse.

From as far back as she’s been subjected to the inane queries of her neighbors ( _c’est la vie_ —such is upstate suburbia), Dotty West has had her attention drawn to the contrast between her and her daughter.

 _You’re a real matriarch_ , they say. _That Amanda of yours is a truly lovely young lady._

It translates (it translates _loosely_ —Dotty doesn’t have the patience for precision, and thank heavens the times changed when they did, because it still takes all of her patience is less of a requirement today than it was when she was growing up) into something like “How’d a willowy primrose like that come outta such a crazy broad?”

Dotty thinks both terms are equally insulting, but she can’t bring herself to work herself up over it (except for these days—these days, she has much more time to think because she’s by herself, and she doesn’t like it). They’re wrong, of course. She’s loud, but Amanda’s loud by her own right (they were a family full of loud people, and Dotty thinks that maybe if one of them hadn’t been, nothing would have worked, though Dotty knows that Amanda doesn’t remember her Daddy that way). Amanda’s just billowy where Dotty’s blustery.

The part where they’re off by an extra zero is the part where they assume volume equals strength, and Dotty was smart enough to learn early in life that that’s not the case. She was smart enough to learn about Amanda too, back when she was so much shorter (but just as gangly—if Dotty didn’t know any better, she’d worry) and learning to spell and she yelling at her little Panda (not yelling, but it might as well be for Amanda, because she’s never used this tone of voice with her daughter before—she’s never had to) because _in what universe is it alright to hide your friend away from her parents in our attic?_ And she’s blustering and mad and not fully following her own train of thought because of the mix of fear and confusion (and Amanda’s friend’s a few rooms away waiting for her parents, out of earshot—hopefully) and the guilty pangs she gets when she sees Amanda try and fail to hold back her tears. 

“Do you understand me, young lady?” Dotty finally finishes. “ _Do not ever do that again_.”

Amanda stops trying to hold back the tears and just cries openly for a while. Dotty wants to send her to her room, but really she needs to be down here to apologize to her friend’s parents, and sending her upstairs feels like more of a reward for Dotty than a punishment for Amanda.

Finally (it can’t have been long, because the girl’s parents aren’t here yet, but Dotty thinks that to the both of them, it feels like an eternity), Amanda’s sobs hiccup to a halt.

“I’m sorry,” Amanda whispers. “I just didn’t want her daddy to spank her.”

Dotty sighs. “I have half a mind to slap some sense into you—” Amanda flinches. “—you know I don’t do that. You’ve learned your lesson.”

“He always does, though,” says Amanda, eyes wide, more scared than she was when Dotty was yelling at her. “She said it was hurting her too much to sit up straight at school, but we always have to sit up straight, you know, so I thought—that maybe—if she stayed here a little bit and no one knew, just until he got less mad—”

Dotty reminds herself that the long silence that follows that probably seems longer to Amanda than it does to her. It doesn’t help.

“You’re telling the truth?” asks Dotty.

“Yes,” says Amanda, eyes wide. She’s not a good liar, never was, probably never will be.

“Amanda,” says Dotty, her voice feeling tight, her stomach sinking. “Why didn’t you tell an adult?”

Amanda looks down at the ground. “Her daddy promised not to hurt her, and he hurt her, and then the police make promises too—they were there last week at school to talk to us about strangers…”

When Dotty goes into the next room with Amanda and sees Debbie Lee’s back speckled like an egg on Easter morning, she sends both girls into Amanda’s room and calls the police. It takes the rest of the day, and by the time it’s sorted out and the policemen take Debbie’s father away and leave her to her mother, Amanda’s half asleep when Dotty goes back upstairs.

“Are you still mad at me?” Amanda asks sleepily as Dotty tucks her into bed. “Am I still in trouble?”

“No,” says Dotty. “And yes. Lying is bad. But you had a good reason for it.”

“What was the right thing to do?” asks Amanda. She’s got her father’s eyes, big and piercing and truthful, but that’s not what startles Dotty—it’s the even strength back there, a strength that Dotty finds is just part of Amanda is as she grows older.

It’s just part of who she is.

Dotty’s trying to formulate an answer when she realizes that Amanda’s asleep.

Dotty’s thankful for that even strength now, as they stand in their— _Dotty’s_ closet now, trying to pick out a funeral suit. Dotty feels bad for even having her do this with her, but while they were going up the stairs together, Amanda had said, very quietly under her breath, like Dotty could have imagined it if she’d wanted to, that she always thought that she and Dotty would do this together.

Then they’d bawled, of course, but Dotty’s a firm believer that there’s no shame in crying for lost love. She’s tried to raise Amanda to believe the same thing.

“Black for the funeral,” says Amanda, half-statement, half question, running her hands over the matching sets in Dotty’s closet (his side had always been more organized than hers).

“Yes,” says Dotty distractedly.

“It’s your decision,” says Amanda. She makes a sound, and it’s like she’s going to cry again—but she’s just coughing because of the dust in the closet.

Dotty hasn’t cleaned in a while. It feels strange without him here, not like she needed him to make her home (but she wanted him there, she did), but now that he’s gone, she just knows, in a way that may not be related to him at all, that this house is not her home anymore.

She grasps Amanda’s hand.

“He hated wearing suits.”

Amanda’s voice breaks into a laugh. “Yes, I know. Would he have wanted to be buried in one?”

“Of course,” says Dotty. “He also wouldn’t have given a damn about what he was wearing if he was dead.” She breathes in and out deeply, and Amanda follows. It feels like the first fresh breath of air she’s taken in a while. 

“Okay,” says Amanda slowly. “Then what do you want him to wear?” She’s still got her hands in the clothes, the same way she used to touch everything in the store when she was a little girl. Dotty had always pulled her back and never considered that she may have been just touching them for comfort. She knows Amanda’s touching them for comfort now, sliding her hands over the smooth, cool-but-not-cold fabric.

They look at each other, and slowly, Amanda’s hands stop right where Dotty thought they would. 

Navy blue.

“I always liked him in blue,” sighs Dotty, and she covers Amanda’s hands on the jacket sleeve and squeezes. 

(Sometimes, Amanda makes her feel strong. Sometimes, they are stronger together.)

“Me too,” whispers Amanda.

It’s hot as hell when they bury her daddy, the middle of the summer, not a cloud in the sky. One of the choir members faints outside the church. They boys are young then, so very young, and she knows somewhere in the back of her mind that Amanda had to have been carrying at least one of them the whole time, but in her memory, Amanda never leaves her side. 

* * *

Dotty has a dual reason to move into Amanda’s house. Her gut’s telling her not to stay in her house anymore, and Amanda’s marriage is falling apart.

It worries Dotty, but she doesn’t see any shame in it. She wants her little girl taken care of (because one cannot conceivably be strong for that long a period of time), but she doesn’t want her to stay somewhere she doesn’t belong. 

Of course, this isn’t Dotty’s business. Amanda and Joe have to work this mess out themselves. Dotty can only help things along. Subtly, of course.

She starts by coming over every other day and helping Amanda do chores. Then, she accidentally stays one night and lets Amanda win the argument about her coming over on weekends more often. She also lets Amanda raise the idea about her moving in. (In a way, it’s also Amanda admitting that she has a problem herself, but Dotty’s not going to say anything—Dotty’s going to do laundry and be in living room plays with her grandsons.)

Dotty asks Amanda for a ride one day, and Amanda gets a sitter and agrees to drive her to her and Daddy’s house. Amanda doesn’t ask why. She doesn’t say anything as they pack up the rest of Dotty’s things and move her into the guest bedroom. They go back the next weekend to pack up everything else.

A few months later, when Dotty is awoken in a way that she never is by small sounds of someone moving in the kitchen when it’s simultaneously too early and too late to be down there, she doesn’t assume it’s a burglar. She goes downstairs and finds Amanda leaning on the counter and crying into her hands, cupped over her mouth (Dotty still doesn’t know how she heard her—Amanda’s long mastered the art of crying so that she doesn’t wake her kids).

“It’s not going to work out,” Amanda whispers, making a little circular motion where her ring sits on her hand, a little tight because her hands are swollen from crying.

She doesn’t know how she does it, because Dotty’s much too old for this kind of action, but she boosts herself up onto the counter (disadvantages of having a daughter taller than you—you learn to adapt) and hugs her to herself like she did when she was a little girl. 

“He’s just so far,” says Amanda (quietly, the mother voice that doesn’t wake her kids). “They’re changing. We’re all changing and growing, and he’s not here.”

“He’s not here,” Dotty finds herself repeating. (She doesn’t mean to.)

“I just—I _knew_ , right? I knew it could happen, but I didn’t think that I would be doing this on my own,” says Amanda, and she does lose control then, just a little bit, and she squeezes her mother’s shoulders, and damn it all to hell, Dotty’s crying too now (but quietly, quietly so Amanda doesn’t hear her).

“But you’re not on your own,” says Dotty. “I’m here.”

Amanda pulls away and smiles. “Yes, yes but—” She realizes the “but” sounds hurtful and stops. “I’m sorry.” Dotty shakes her head. It _is_ hurtful, but not in the way that Amanda thinks, in an unintentional way that involves seeing your children grow up, in an unavoidable kind of way. “You’re right. We’ll do this together.”

It’s not an ugly divorce, but it’s long and tiring, and there are a lot of forms to sign. Dotty relearns Arlington in a way that she hasn’t had to in a long time—where the public parks are in short distance to the house, when the good grocery stores have their sales—so Amanda can work on dissolving her marriage on her own.

Sometimes, she comes home from the meetings when the kids are already in bed and just looks exhausted. Dotty doesn’t let her near the stove, and Amanda sits down at the island while Dotty reheats dinner.

It’s cold now, and snow’s coming down outside in droves. Dotty makes hot chocolate with double chocolate sprinkles and nutmeg and whipped cream. Amanda looks down into her mug and laughs.

“I haven’t had it like this in years—” she starts, then claps her hand over her mouth.

Dotty sets the dinner in front of Amanda and looks at her firmly. “If you’re not going to do it here, then when are you going to do it?” Dotty asks. She hands her a tissue, and right on cue, Amanda starts crying (quietly, always quietly).

There’s no shame in crying over lost love.

* * *

Dean has an uncanny ability to cover his face up when he comes over—Dotty swears she’s only seen the man for real a handful of times (she has to be mistaken, though), but Amanda starts bringing him around, and he does have an overwhelming ability to make everything feel normal, so Dotty doesn’t mind. She comes home to find them watching television or Amanda cleaning while he makes soup, and the boys like him well enough.

Dotty’s just glad that she doesn’t have that look about her anymore, the look that she had a few months after the divorce. She seemed stressed and idle at the same time, fingers always twitching. Dotty didn’t like it. 

Dean’s polite and calls her ma’am, and maybe Dotty was starved for normal—maybe Amanda was too, she’s not sure.

Dotty should have been able to see that it wasn't enough for someone who deserves everything.

Dotty should have been able to see that she wasn’t in love with him.

* * *

She’s trying to trust in Amanda. She really is.

She knows she’s not being told the whole truth, and she tries to be fine with that. Amanda shares all the things with her that matter (that’s what she tells herself, and she believes Amanda—that girl doesn’t have a sour bone in her body).

She’s more than allowed to be _worried_ , though. For Pete’s sake, her only daughter in the world’s coming home looking way more exhausted than the job she has is supposed to make her and spreading herself too think trying to get everyone tucked in and cleaned up.

Dotty doesn’t have a problem with working women, of course. Part of her wonders what job she would have had had she not stayed home with Amanda, but she doesn’t think she’d rather do anything else. She knows Amanda feels the same, but if Amanda wants to be out all day, she can certainly help out more at home.

Besides, Dotty’s bored, and her romance novels, while entertaining, aren’t cutting it.

“Mother, will you bring a blanket?” Amanda asks from where she’s (practically lying) on the couch. “I’m sorry, I’m just feeling a little under the weather.”

“Didn’t you have a date tonight?” asks Dotty. There’s already a blanket on the couch, but Amanda’s asking for _the quilt_ —her grandmother’s quilt—Dotty takes it out from where it’s stored near the window and lays it over Amanda, who sits up.

“I did. I cancelled,” Amanda replies. “I’m just beat lately. I’m not sure that I’d make it through a dinner.”

“Don’t bother moving over. There’s plenty of room on the both of us,” says Dotty. She reaches out a hand. “Here, lie back down." 

Amanda curls up on the couch. “It’s just that I don’t feel well, Mother. Don’t read too much into it.”

Dotty sighs, half out of frustration and half because her baby’s struggling and she doesn’t know why. “Well, you’re not going to get any better if we just sit here talking to each other. Just rest.” Amanda closes her eyes, and Dotty smoothes her hair. She fights to ask the question she wants to ask: _If you were really sick, would you tell me?_ Every time she asks it, she gets the same answer: _No, trust me._ “You’re not spending the night on this couch, though.”

“Okay,” Amanda says, already drifting off. She’s always been like that with this quilt, ever since she was a little girl. Dotty had seriously thought twice before giving it to her as a wedding present—what’s the point of giving a wedded couple a present that the wife just _falls asleep_ under?

(They do both end up falling asleep, but they wake up in the middle of the night before any real damage is done and go to bed. Amanda’s gone—work, of course—when she wakes up in the morning.)

* * *

Amanda breaks off her engagement, slowly stops dating altogether, and turns her part-time job into a full-time job. She runs off in the middle of the night in the middle of conversations to somewhere in the neighborhood—the backyard? That doesn’t make any sense, but Dotty can swear that she’s out there way more than she should.

Dotty watches all of this happen from the living room couch, where she’s either helping the boys with their homework or reading her romance novel of the week (she’s up to one every two days now—she needs to get another hobby).

While Philip and Jamie are at a birthday party hosted near the mall, she walks by (she’s still not quite gotten there with the driving lessons, yet, but it’s happening, _it is_ ) some lingerie stores and picks up some catalogs. She signs up for the subscriptions too. If Amanda can go off and have adventures, she can too.

And Amanda seems to be _thriving_. She’s still tired, but there’s a spring in her step that hasn’t been there—ever? Maybe it’s just different. She’s changed, too. She moves more deliberately (though she still talks a million miles an hour). When Dotty talks to her, she can tell that Amanda’s mind is somewhere far away—not aimless, just far ahead, like she’s planning.

She shouldn’t like it, but she does. Even though the boys see their mom less, the situation somehow seems better. (Of course, when Amanda’s there, she’s _there_ , but Dotty’s never—along with anyone else who’s met Amanda—worried about her ability to be a mother.)

Sometimes she wishes she knew why, but instead, she reads and tries to drive and orders formfitting dresses that she can wear, because she’s a grandmother, but she doesn’t look half bad.

Dotty learns later that this is one of the good days.

One of the bad days could be a hospital day—Amanda’s been in and out of the hospital more than the boys combined in the past few years (and they have a knack for hitting their heads on things—they will be the death of Amanda and Dotty both _, for heaven’s sakes_ ), and Dotty knows that that’s just the times she knows about. Amanda comes home sometimes, after one of the long (always explained away) absences she has for work, and she’s hurt herself (Amanda’s clumsy with words and mannerisms maybe, but never in the way that she moves).

One of the bad days is when Dotty sees her wince one day while reaching for something on a taller shelf and realizes that she’s seen that sight too many times before—not all of the wounds she’s getting are physical.

One of the bad days is the handful of times Dotty catches Amanda looking off into the distance, frozen in place, seeing something there that Dotty can’t (and probably doesn’t want to).

Dotty purses her lips and goes to cooking class and takes flying lessons. She dances with men in the living room, and even though she can tell it bothers Amanda to see her with men who aren’t her father (which surprised Dotty—she never thought that would be the case, for some reason), she just beams and leaves her be.

They’re both trying so hard to be happy, and it looks like, after all the work, it’s starting to work out.

Then, sometimes, like tonight, Amanda’s crying by the kitchen island again, but unlike the time five years ago, when Dotty knew exactly what was wrong, she has no idea what it is this time.

(Okay, she does, but _that_ story’s crazy.)

She doesn’t even know if she’s supposed to see what’s happening, so she stands in the doorway, helpless.

“Mother,” says Amanda softly. “I know you’re there. You can come in.”

Amanda hasn’t turned around, but she’s gripping the inner fingers of her left hand for some reason, so hard that there are dents in her skin. “What do you need?” asks Dotty.

Amanda chuckles a little through her tears. “Whatever you think. You always know." 

She doesn’t (that doesn't stop Amanda's response from making her heart glow), but her educated guess is that leftover chocolate cake is the way to go. She takes it out of the refrigerator and warms it up just enough.

“You see,” says Amanda, between bites. “You always know.” Dotty realizes, for the first time, that she doesn’t know when Amanda’s lying or not anymore.

Amanda probably will never know how she breaks Dotty’s heart—sometimes with sadness, sometimes with pride, and sometimes with both at the same time.

* * *

Joe moves back to town after years abroad without much of an explanation, but he appears to be at least partially on the same wavelength that Amanda runs on these days, so Dotty does what’s best for everyone and doesn’t ask any questions.

It’s nice having Joe back around, though (Dotty’s always liked him, even when he was being a pain in the neck). They boys appreciate it. She doesn’t have to ask him to help out around the house (it’s like he knows that Amanda’s away all the time), but when he offers to build a bigger fence around the house, Dotty agrees. 

When he asks her to help him out with it, she’s about to say no but thinks better of it. She’s not the Dotty from a few years ago. This Dotty drives. This Dotty has dates on Friday night. This Dotty is learning Latin dancing and singing loudly like no one is listening while she irons.

This Dotty builds fences.

It turns out that she really doesn’t have to do that much—mostly hand him tools and occasionally resize and sand things (were outside chores really all this easy?). It’s a chance for the two of them to talk, though, which Dotty appreciates and she thinks Joe does too, though she’s not sure how much talking he had been planning on doing beforehand. 

Dotty’s forgotten how good of a conversation partner he was.

“She’s just changed,” says Dotty. “It’s not a big deal. She seems happier. I’m just not sure where I fit in to that. I moved in to see her more, not less.” Joe doesn’t say anything. “Of course it was for the boys too,” she adds hastily. He doesn’t any much after that either, and Dotty has to remind herself that Joe’s not as quick at firing back as most of the people she knows. (This might be why they have such good conversations.)

“Well, I know I’m not the best judge,” he tells her as he hands her the hammer, “but I’d reckon you’ve changed quite a bit too, Dotty. For the better, of course.”

Dotty laughs. “Well, West women only get better with age.” He chuckles in agreement, and it’s a while before they speak again, but the whole day feels lighter after that.

* * *

In her head, sometimes, while she’s just finished a book and trying to fall asleep, or in the first few thoughts she has in the morning while she brushes her teeth, Dotty tries her hand at making up a story to fill in the gaps of Amanda’s life now. It’s probably wrong, but it’s just thoughts—they never hurt anyone. 

Besides, Dotty fancies herself a writer, a little bit. She blames it on Amanda. Suddenly, the household’s gone theater crazy—or maybe Amanda’s just calling up an old passion of hers.

It’s a fantastic story, though it’s not very long (perhaps this is the reason Dotty’s not a famous mystery writer, though she loves to read them so much). It goes a little something like this.

Amanda’s a secret international spy with an international spy cowboy boyfriend (well, it’s her dream—she can do whatever she wants with this). Together, they take on the Russians and whoever else is threatening peace in the world. Their office is probably some kind of secret clubhouse. She finds herself picturing superhero suits, like the ones in the comics that Philip and Jaime read.

She rolls over and goes to sleep. How silly she’s gotten in the past few years.

(When she goes to painting class the next week, though, it makes for a quite interesting piece of artwork.)

* * *

Now, she just tries to help.

Vitamin E, aloe vera, menthol, and a few drops of Lidocaine from one of Dotty’s neighborhood friends (Dotty doesn’t ask why she has so much of it).

That’s the mixture that Dotty gives Amanda, always in a nice little jar, always kept in stock in Amanda’s bathroom for when she comes home and is hurting. Dotty’s pretty sure Amanda’s new boyfriend Lee took it away to be tested because she caught him putting it back one time, and his excuse for being in Amanda’s room alone in the middle of the day was much more guilty than it should have been.

Dotty keeps heating and cooling pads in the kitchen, right in the cabinet by the fridge that Amanda likes to look in first when she doesn’t know where something is. She slips her a spa certificate every once in a while and starts to buy the shea butter/Neosporin blend from another one of Amanda’s neighbors (she knows she can’t see them, but she also knows that there’s no way someone goes to the hospital as many times as Amanda does and doesn’t have scars).

Dotty likes Lee, for the record, not that she tells Amanda these things anymore. She’s welcoming when he comes over and doesn’t question why he’s not there for long periods of time. She gets the feeling sometimes that this Lee character is someone that Dotty has the power to scare away, which doesn’t make any sense. Dotty doesn’t think of herself as a scary person, but then again, Amanda’s happy. That’s all that’s supposed to matter even if she and Lee are living some kind of life that Dotty can’t know about.

At the very least, they’re most certainly in love, in a deep and lovely way, in a way that seems to have aged Amanda back a few years. She smiles more now, really smiles, and Dotty figures that's good enough than any of the more pressing questions she quashes down.

Come to think of it, Dotty smiles more too. 

Dotty knows she’s doing it—this job, whatever it is—for the boys. She has to be doing it for the boys, because Dotty fusses around and leaves comforting things in Amanda’s immediate vicinity. Soft things, healing things, sweets.

She does these things for Amanda, and she thinks that maybe, somewhere along the way (she’s not sure where, nor does she care _exactly where_ ), _this_ , whatever _this_ is, has helped her too.

“Mother?” asks Amanda. It’s one of the few nights when the boys are out but they’re both home. They haven’t had a moment like this in a long time, and Dotty finds herself wondering what kind of world events had to move to get them together in the same room.

It’s not a foreign thought, but it’s not one that makes her sad like it usually does. There was a little while where they just had each other. Now, they have others. The boys are getting to be old enough (even though it scares the dickens out her) to act as support. Joe’s around. That boyfriend of Amanda’s is gradually looking less bewildered by her presence. There’s a peculiar blonde lady Amanda brings around sometimes to eat all of their chocolate (okay, not really, but it sure seems like it), who always looks horribly out of place but grateful to be there.

“Sorry, my mind's up in the clouds today,” says Dotty. She takes another bite of her toast. They’re having breakfast for dinner, something that Amanda used to swear up and down as a child she would do when she was older. They have done it, but not so many times. Tonight is one of them, though.

“That’s my line,” laughs Amanda.

“Well, you _are_ my daughter,” says Dotty, with a raised eyebrow. “It’s assumed you’re going to pick up on some of my _impeccable_ traits.”

It’s early evening, and they’re drinking tea instead of coffee because they mean to get some sleep tonight (they’re going to watch a movie first, though—Amanda’s choice), but Amanda lifts her mug anyway. “I think that’s worth a toast.”

They toast, and they sip, and it’s lovely.


End file.
